Nature, Outdoor & wilderness living skills, traditional & primitive skills and crafts in the north of Swedish Lapland

Menu

Needle

Still raining and also a very strong westerly wind today. The rain cleared in the evening and it became sunny but with wintry showers and a temperature of 3 degrees, so I had a fire going most of the day

I spent the day carving and sanding the kåsa and also began making a smaller one from an off-cut of the bur.

I had purchased a nice Birch tanned Reindeer hide a few months ago and decided to cut out some pieces to make pouches for coffee, flour and so on.

I cut two pieces; a round piece for the base and rectangular piece long enough to go around the circumference of base

I intended to use a bone awl and antler needle I had made, with dental floss as thread

but it was not before I had broken the needle and then the awl, so I changed to a nail as a an awl and the needle I carry in my neck pouch as mentioned here.

Dental floss is a very good substitute for real sinew as a sewing thread and I use both sinew and dental floss double thickness. I sew around the base first and then up the side with the leather inside

Once sewing is completed I turn the pouch the right way out, make a series of holes around the top and thread through a leather cord with which to close the bag

For a toggle for the draw cord I cut a triangular piece of leather, role it up and make a hole through it, pulling the tip of the leather through the hole to prevent the leather unrolling. I make two holes in the rolled up toggle and thread the ends of the cord through. To close the bag you pull the toggle and it locks the bag closed.